Aquaponics provides an innovative solution to Sustainable Food Agriculture in New Delhi

Last weekend, UNSW Founders in partnership with UNSW Engineering and UNSW Global Water Institute held the exciting Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Food Planning Hackathon.

During this 2.5 day Hackathon, participants were tasked with exploring how we could create low cost, low energy, accessible and sustainable urban agricultural solutions for continuous food production to provide for the growing population of New Delhi.

As a developing and growing population, India faces the struggle of food security and sustainability. Although a very challenging problem to tackle alone, students were given continuous support and guidance from industry experts. Some of which include Professor Ana Deletic, UNSW Pro Vice Chancellor Research, Dr. Qiyuan Li, a research associate in the UNSW School of Chemical Engineering, Dr. Veljiko Prodanovic; a research associate at the UNSW Water Research Centre, Dr. Soumi Paul Mukhopadhyay; a sensory and consumer research scientist of horticulture at NSW Department of Primary Industries and Serene Lee; co-founder of Farmwall. View the full panel of experts that supported participants on the hack website.

The Hackathon was a major success having an amazing turnout of almost 50 students from different disciplines of study, and four fo the participant were students from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar who were funded as part of a UNSW grant from the UNSW-India Collaborative Research Seed FUnd. 9 teams were formed with a high level of engagement from the mentors and the enthusiasm of the participants to come up with some great ideas. The top ideas were awarded with various prizes to support the development of these solutions.

1st Place ($3000 Cash) - Team Plantra

Their solution aimed to integrate modular aquaponics for under utilised land in peri urban and urban environments in Delhi, India.

2nd Place ($750 Cash) - Team Fresh DelHI

A fresh packaging system to store and preserve wheat, made of biodegradable materials with tracking QR and indicator to track quality.

3rd Place ($250 Cash) Team KasaniX

Decentralised agricultural supply chain in India using AI based platform to save costs for farmers.

People’s Choice Award ($250 Cash) - Team Connect Disconnect

A platform to facilitate agricultural micro-grids and promote urban food growing 

A big congratulations to all the participants and winners!